


You'll Come Undone

by agent_izhyper



Series: merrily, merrily, (not so merrily) life is but a dream [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Realities, Canon Compliant, For the most part, M/M, mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1505939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_izhyper/pseuds/agent_izhyper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world was full of contradictions. Every corner hid a secret and every shadow had its own story to tell.</p><p>There wasn’t much that was too far-fetched out there, not with what they’d all seen so far in their short lives. Suspicions arose from the slightest hint of supernatural influence anywhere these days, which made it tricky for any of them to get caught off-guard.</p><p>Unless, of course, the supernatural manifested itself when they were already unaware.</p><p>Like, perhaps, in their sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Come Undone

**Author's Note:**

> this has been lying around in my folder for a while so I thought, what the hell, might as well polish it up and post it. the idea's been sitting in my head for ages - there was a random tumblr post, something about scenarios we think up of actually being from the lives of our alternate reality selves (in which case, what gives, my AU self has been having some wicked cool adventures *grumbles*) so I kinda applied the idea to dreams.
> 
> 'cause that would be really cool.
> 
> EDIT: fixed up some typos, and took on my friend's suggestion. This will be turned into a series of one-shots rather than a chapter fic.

_The world was full of contradictions. Every corner hid a secret and every shadow had its own story to tell._

_Living a life where werewolves and hunters, kanimas and kitsune existed, it would make sense to expect the impossible. There wasn’t much that was too far-fetched out there, not with what they’d all seen so far in their short lives. Suspicions arose from the slightest hint of supernatural influence anywhere these days, which made it tricky for any of them to get caught off-guard by anything._

_Unless, of course, the supernatural manifested itself when they were already unaware._

_Like, perhaps, in their sleep._

*******

“Dude, seriously, what _haven’t_ we faced yet?”

“There’s always the undead…”

“Don’t even joke about that, Stiles, the last thing we need right now is flesh-eating zombies!”

“Aw, c’mon Scott, it’ll be cool. We can finally put to use all those zombie apocalypse preparations we made that summer before eighth grade.” Stiles grinned across the dashboard at Scott, who shook his head with a tired laugh.

“Yeah, sure, as long as you don’t use me for bait because I heal a lot faster,” he teased back. At the mention of injuries, Stiles glanced in the rearview mirror at Derek, who was watching them both with the most deadpan expression ever. “Speaking of, you healing all right there, big guy?”

Derek brushed a hand across the dried blood along his collarbone. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Alright, sweet.” Stiles turned his jeep into the parking by the loft, Scott raising a hand in farewell to Derek as they both watched him smoothly get out of the car and make his way up. Reassured that he was all healed up after the unsuspected beating he’d taken earlier on, Stiles dropped Scott off too before driving home.

He heaved a deep sigh of relief as soon as he was inside. It had been taxing, dealing with the druid-y witch, but they were done for the night. Coming home after a showdown like that always made Stiles feel like a heavy weight got pushed back off his shoulders. It was comforting. Familiar.

His dad was asleep by now and Stiles was well on his way to crashing himself. He managed to stay awake for ten more minutes, enough to shower and re-check the protective boundaries around the house. They might have emerged victorious for tonight, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. He trudged into his room with a jaw-cracking yawn only to stop, grudgingly, and stare at the mess of papers and notes and books spread all over his floor and bed.

When Stiles got into a researching frenzy, he emerged like one being pulled out of water – disoriented and dazed, unaware of what exactly had transpired around him. Usually, he left in a hurry after making a breakthrough and it wasn’t until hours, days, later that he actually _looked_ and took stook of how deep exactly he’d submerged himself in the bucketloads of information.

He sighed – all he wanted to do right now was _sleep_ , for at least twelve hours. But he knew better than to leave all his research out like this. While it was a lot safer now that his dad was in on the supernatural happenings of Beacon Hills, he didn’t really want to leave it all a mess. Organising the stuff now would be better than putting it off for later – last time he’d done that, Scott had paid him a window-visit halfway through the night all injured and bloody; needless to say, majority of his notes had been unsalvageable.

It only took about five minutes to move everything to his already cluttered desk, being careful not to mix things up too much. Anything really important was already up on his Wall of Supernatural Fuckery (no-one could argue it wasn’t accurate) and Stiles had to stop himself a couple – or six – times before he sat down to look over some points again whenever something intriguing reignited his curiosity. Information about ancient druid magic, about blending realities and the power source being fuelled by fresh blood and a waning moon – there was more, a lot more, but fuck if Stiles hadn’t had enough of magic for one night. The important thing was that no more innocent blood was being spilled in this town for now and he could finally get that long-deserved sleep he was craving.

With another almighty yawn and a brief stumble into bed and wrestle with the sheets – now thankfully cleared of all research things – Stiles blissfully let his eyes slide shut.

* * *

A knock on the door woke him up, his dad’s voice as it opened up piercing through the last vestiges of sleep-fog in his head and shattering the remnants of a super weird dream.

“Morning, kiddo,” he said softly, shooting the blearily grumbling Stiles a small grin. “We’re heading out soon – need us to get you anything?”

Stiles mumbled a “nah” before rolling over and hiding his face in the pillow to escape the bright rays of sunlight streaming in from his window. His dad chuckled behind him and left; Stiles heard his steps down the stairs, quiet voices before the front door opened and the car roared to life outside and drove away. He sighed sleepily into his pillow, debating whether or not to just get up now.

His phone (or Scott to be precise) decided for him.

Stiles shot an arm out of the covers and waved his hand blindly in the direction of the loud cell on his nightstand, cursing when it predictably hit the corner.

“Christ,” he hissed, finally just sitting up and grabbing the offending phone. “What?”

Okay, maybe he did need more sleep.

“Hey, dude!” Scott answered cheerfully from the other end, unaffected as always by Stiles’ grouchy morning self. “My mom’s got a full shift today, want to head over and let me kick your ass in Halo?”

Stiles snorted but slid out of bed and grabbed the nearest pair of possibly-clean jeans. “Let’s not be delusional, Scotty, we both know who’s going to be eating dirt and it’s not me,” he shot back easily, the banter coming second-nature as always.

“Please,” Scott scoffed, a grin in his voice.

“I’ll be there in ten,” Stiles told him.

He fully planned to, anyway – munching on a sandwich in his jeep (he’ll have an awesome bacon-filled breakfast at Scott’s, considering bacon was a big no-no in the Stilinski household at the moment due to his dad’s cholesterol) as he hummed along to the radio and lazily pulled into an empty side road that served as a short-cut – but sometimes plans had a way of derailing horribly.

Like fucking _being this close to running over someone with his car_ kind of horribly.

“Oh my god!” Stiles yelled, slamming on the brakes and turning the wheel the moment he became aware of the figure crossing the street. He was lucky – extremely lucky – that he hadn’t been going over the speed limit otherwise the guy would be roadkill (or, well, the human equivalent).

“Oh my god, oh my _god_ shit, I am so sorry, I didn’t hit you right, fuck,” Stiles babbled, the terror of the moment making his heart try to jump out of his chest as he threw his door open and stumbled out to the guy, who stood frozen, staring at the jeep that had stopped inches from him.

“I- shit, dude, I almost didn’t see you, you’re not hurt, right?” He flapped his hands uselessly around as he neared the slightly older man, stopping a couple of feet away to anxiously scan him. Derek Hale, his mind helpfully supplied through the fog of panic, raised his hands cautiously at Stiles and spoke in a tone that was way too calm for a guy who’d almost died. Or, broken bones, _at least_.

“It’s fine, you didn’t hit me.” He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Sorry. I should have been watching where I was going.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Stiles said hastily. Now that the brief rush of adrenaline dropped at the knowledge that he hadn’t hit an actual person with his car and possibly killed them, the thought that he _could_ have sent his heart tripping over itself as it raced double-time, his palms becoming sweaty and everything blacking up as his breaths quickly became laboured. He registered that the man, Derek, was trying to talk to him in a loud, worried voice – if his quickly-fading expression was anything to go by – but the words were all lost in the dull rush of blood and he was falling to his knees hard before he knew it. _He could have killed someone._

“-ey, hey listen to me, okay-“ Strong hands gripped his shoulders and someone was holding Stiles’ hand up to their steady chest. “Listen, focus on my words, okay, breathe with me. In and out, come on. In-“ The solid warm chest rose; “and out.” It depressed, and Stiles found himself listening, the words penetrating somehow before his breathing got too out of control. He found himself matching Derek’s breaths, slowly slowly coming back to himself. His heartbeat was still too loud in his ears but at least it was dropping to a more reasonable level, and his eyes, when he dared to open them, could see clearly again.

Which was about when he realised that he was leaning way into the space of Derek Hale, both on their knees in the middle of the thankfully empty road; Derek gripping his shoulder and Stiles’ fingers clenched around the hem of his shirt.

Needless to say, the next blood rush that Stiles suffered was all to his face. He dropped his hand and rocked back on his heels, eyes wide, while Derek just crouched there and _looked_ at him. “Oh my god, sorry,” he muttered, feeling pretty mortified. “I don’t… That doesn’t usually happen.” He huffed a forced-sounding laugh, looking anywhere but at Derek.

He was surprised at the amused response. “What, the way you almost hit me or the panic attack?”

“Um.” Stiles blinked at him. It didn’t exactly help – did he mention that the Hales were an insanely attractive bunch? “Both?” Huh. He hadn’t had a panic attack since his mom had been sick, years ago, and everyone at the hospital had only had grim news that sent his eight-year-old self careening into a perpetual state of panic until she pulled through. His mom was a badass like that.

Derek just shot him a brief grin and patted his shoulder once before getting up. Stiles followed suit awkwardly and with maybe more staring than was polite. Derek tilted his head at the jeep. “You good to drive? Your heart’s still racing.”

It took a moment for his brain to catch up. “Uh- yeah, no, I’m good. Now. Thanks for that, by the way.” Stiles cleared his throat, shuffling back to his car – the engine of which, he just realised, was still running. Derek nodded at him and Stiles nodded back, and just like that they were each heading their respective ways again; Stiles a little slower than before.

He was barely off the street (Derek was out of sight of his rearview mirror now – not that he’d been checking) when he thought to wonder what had clued him in that Stiles’ heart had been running a marathon. The musings were pushed to the back of his mind when the familiar tone of his phone distracted him.

It was Scott.

“Stiles! I called you like three times, dude, where are you?”

Stiles blinked at his surroundings and realised he was just a couple of houses down from Scott’s. That was good. It meant he could freak out about what had just happened to his face instead of on the phone, which was much more satisfying. “Sorry, bro, something happened. I’m right outside, coming up now.” He cut the line, slid the cell into his pocket and jogged up the steps to Scott’s house.

His best friend met him at the door with a worried look. “What happened, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, it’s just.” Stiles waved a hand, trying to word it properly. Scott’s earnestly concerned expression made the words tumble out. “Dude, I almost ran over Derek Hale on the road and then had a panic attack over it and he totally stopped it by making me breathe with him and-“

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, what,” Scott interrupted, looking startled. “You almost- you didn’t crash, did you? Are you hurt?”

“No! No, see, I’m all good, but- Christ, Scott, I could’ve killed the guy.”

Scott, being the awesome best bud that he was, didn’t panic along with Stiles. Instead, he led him to the kitchen and proceeded to calm Stiles down with chatter and his mom’s spaghetti and meatballs (which, by the way? Best fucking spaghetti in the _world_ , no joke). He knew Stiles well enough by now not to try convincing him otherwise of a fact that they both knew to be true, and Stiles appreciated it like hell.

“Alright!” Stiles shoved aside his empty bowl and clapped a hand down on Scott’s shoulder with a wide grin. “I was promised some ass-kicking, I believe. Hop to it, Scott.”

Scott scoffed, shot him his own version of a death glare (too puppy-ish to actually do any harm, really, but who was Stiles to break the guy’s delusions?) and went to start up his PlayStation 3.

And then Stiles proceeded to hand his ass to him multiple times in a row, with the occasional break of pace just to even things up a little.

* * *

After many, many mindnumbing hours of video games, Stiles had almost forgotten about the incident of that morning. Until he was back in his jeep and heading home, that is, wherein he made a conscious effort to slow down considerably and watch the road like a hawk. So it took a little longer to get home, and maybe he was a bundle of nerves by the time he made it, but at least no-one got hurt, right?

He grinned to himself upon reaching the front door – there was no mistaking the smell of the famous Stilinski pancakes, and that was definitely what his nose was catching. He kicked off his shoes (in a totally orderly fashion, mind you, he wasn’t raised by wolves) and strolled into the kitchen.

“Coming home to pancakes. I feel loved,” he said with a beaming smile.

His dad shook his head in fond amusement and patted his shoulder on his way to the fridge. “You’d think we’ve been depriving you or something, kiddo.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say _depriving_ …” Stiles joked, inching closer to the stack of chocolate-chip pancakes on the benchtop. He reached out a hand to sneak one only to have it smacked away lightly by a ladle.

“Uh-uh, not until the rest are done.”

Stiles dropped his hand and looked up with a pout and a whined, “But _Mom_ , the choc chips are still deliciously _melted_ right now, can’t I just…”

“No, you cannot just. Now, take over, and _try_ not to overwhelm them with the chocolate.”

“I make no promises.”

Stiles snickered in the face of his mom’s reluctant grin as she handed him the batter. Everyone said they shared the same smile and sense of humour, which usually led to his dad groaning in the background whenever she encouraged his joking remarks. Stiles didn’t take it to heart; his dad totally found him hilarious. Even if he did have the best deadpan expression in the world.

He squawked in good-natured protest when his mom ruffled his hair as she passed him to grab the syrup and then turned to the stove. Pancake time was an awesome chance to perfect his artsy skills – which were amazing, whatever Scott said – with pancake dinosaurs and similar things.

“The fact that you haven’t run out of animals to make pancakes of yet astounds me,” his dad commented once they were each seated with their respective pancake stacks.

“Dad, I thought you had more faith in my creative abilities,” Stiles said, pointing at him with his fork after drowning his stack in maple syrup. “I am wounded, I hope you realise that.”

“Creative’s right,” his mom agreed. “Remember that time he made the whole K9 unit?” She smirked at her husband knowingly when he made a pained expression.

“I think I regret that one. Dad just looked too heartbroken at eating the one that looked like Pirate. Did I apologise for that? I feel like I should have. Apologised. Sincerely,” Stiles added.

His dad changed the subject smoothly by asking after Scott and his mother. Stiles dived into the topic with as much enthusiasm as any of his chatter ever had, though this time it was mainly to avoid mentioning the Derek-related incident. It wasn’t a big deal ( _really_ ) and he didn’t want his parents worrying if they found out about his brief panic attack. Especially considering it wasn’t likely to happen again; they were never an outright common occurrence, even when his mom was sick. They just hit him hard and this one hadn’t left him feeling as shaky and faint afterwards as some of his previous episodes.

There was really no reason to worry them

* * *

Stiles went up to bed with a contently full stomach. He had to laugh a bit when he looked around his room, weirdly devoid of the usual clutter that made it look messy during school days. At the moment, it was just normal teenage-boy messy – clothes strewn around the floor and spilling out of the hamper, stray socks peeking out from under his bed, empty candy wrappers and soda cans littering his desk. He’d have to clean up a bit soon, before Mom took a look and had a heart attack.

He grabbed his laptop off his desk before dropping into bed. It was funny; for some reason, he felt like it was just yesterday that he had papers and books linings the covers and floor, and every other surface of his room. But he guessed that’s what happened when you were done with finals once and for all and it hadn’t even been a month since. He was bound to be reminded of his research and study-frenzy days.

Shrugging, Stiles pulled up Netflix and got ready to marathon The Walking Dead.

He fell asleep four episodes in.

* * *

The sick sensation deep in his stomach was the first thing Stiles noticed when he woke up. He groaned and tried to burrow back under the covers, anything to throw off the bittersweet remnants of lilac perfume and a loud sweet laugh that was interspersed throughout his childhood memories.

He couldn’t remember the dream. He never did, when it was about his mom, unless it was one of his varying nightmares (which, what the hell brain? How was _that_ fair?) and this one didn’t seem to be. He supposed he should be glad – those were never fun – but the pang of disappointment that shot through him ached.

With a deep sigh, Stiles pushed off his covers and shoved himself off the bed. A quick glance at his phone showed no messages or missed calls, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. That meant Derek and Scott had likely gotten through the rest of the night perfectly fine, which was awesome. The last thing he wanted was for some unforeseen complications to arise after last night.

A break would be nice. It was summer, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... thoughts?


End file.
